ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION AND SUSTAINABLE WASTE MANAGEMENT PROCESS IN AKWA IBOM STATE: IMPLICATIONS ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

The research was set to provide ways of reducing the impact of environmental pollution on public health and socio-economic development through sustainable waste management process in Akwa Ibom State. The study adopted historical and descriptive methods of enquiry and gathered relevant data from secondary sources, although with some scientific observations across the 56 waste dumpsites (as spotted in the map in p. 22 below) in Uyo municipality. The research made use of the theories of modernization (with its different variances or schools of thought), by John Maynard Keynes, particularly, the Social-Cultural Theory, by Hoselitz, Talcott Parson and Manning Nash, etc. According to the author, theorists that share this theoretical perspective believe that it is the changes in the social, cultural and institutional systems that create the necessary condition which usher in economic development. Hoselitz for instance, argues that we must concern ourselves with the question of the change that occurs in a social milieu as it leaves or before it leaves its precious state of relatively slow growth or even stagnation and starts a process of rapid economic growth. Four findings were made, among others was that apart from the monthly sanitation usually conducted by the state government on the last Saturday of every month in the state, Local Government Areas do not, on their own embark on sanitation exercises. Based on those findings, it was recommended among others that, the Commissioner for Environment and Mineral Resources, should get all the 31 Local Government Areas actively involved in the ministry’s partnerships with private sector to aid government agencies toward maintaining a clean and green environment all over the state. As a follow-up, the commissioner should make efforts to keep records of environmental situation at the local government levels through their monthly performance reports